VICTORIAN LICENSING POLL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20991, 2 April 1930, Page 6

VICTORIAN LICENSING POLL.

TO THIS EDITOU. Sir., —I*our article on the Victorian licensing poll in interesting reading. Victorian temperance forces have certainly come short of carrying then reform and of the task set them by the poll conditions, hut to record 385,000 electors desiring the total abolition of the liquor ttaliii:, after years of strict licensing Jaws ami very large reductions of licenses, is a strong indication of the rising tide of public opinion against the licensed traffic, and represents a force in Victoria, as in other countries, that will eventually secure its desires. It has to be remembered that this result has been secured in the present instance against all the misleading propaganda that money can produce. Probably now that the poll is over tho quantity of wild and misleading cablegrams from America will cease —for a time. What will interest jour readers, liowevjr, and is of public importance, is to be told how the trade in Victoria iias been maligning New Zealand nolicensc districts in its paid propaganda in the Victorian newspapers. As the statements are eo palpably untrue and absurd, to quote them without much comment to Otago readers is all that is required. In a reference in an advertisement to Oamaru the Victorian liquor trade makes a supposed witness say " What a change ' dryness' has made in this pretty little coastal town. The hotel I was wont to patronise, instead of being a wcll;kept, cheerful hostelry, was now an ill-lit, dingy, ' dcliecnsed ' house, with the paper peeling off the walls. The food wae execrable, and the bedrooms neglected. At the door I met the proprietor. These were his words: 'The game's no good; I meals and beds don't pay; and there are too many pigs.' ' Pigs,' I elicited, were 1 sly grog shops. In these noisome places one may be served with bad liquor at I ruinous rates. I visited in the same 1 town another hotel, with like results. Mine host seemed merry and contented. !Do you remember the old gas chandeliers? One remains here, but instead of gas coming from the crystal tapped pipes, whisky, brandv. beer, etc., are turned on, and Mr Landlord, stands on a rickety chair' to dispense it." I And again about Port Chalmers was .advertised: "Port baclt- , slider' and the seaport of Dunedin, this, the 'Cinderella' of the ' drys' decideci soon to give up poverty and drabness and to go back to the wet 'ball." It is common knowledge that three special trains were requisitioned'on Saturday nights to take home from Dunedin folk well laden I —inside and outside." I When tactica like these are permitted by law, and indulged in by the liquor interests, is it any wonder that the power of the "purse strings" deceives and frightens the voters? There is part ot an old saying which runs: It is not possible to fool the people all the time. ' l,n ' " New Zealandeb.